Dozens left out in the cold

MLB streamlines development pipeline

Having won the power struggle for control of the sport’s player development pipelines, Major League Baseball on Wednesday took its first public step to roll out its newly configured minor league system, with its 30 big league franchises extending invitations to four farm teams apiece – shifting affiliations between franchises, league and levels, and leaving nearly a dozen teams in the cold.

While the rollout, notably, did not include a statement from MLB – each big league team was left to announce its own new affiliations – it demonstrated, in some cases painfully, the power MLB obtained earlier this year by wresting control of its farm system from Minor League Baseball.

Under the new system, each big league franchise will have four affiliates - one each in Class AAA and Class AA, and two in Class A - and continue to run developmental teams out of their spring training and international sites. The affiliations were configured to streamline geographical footprints - with the Washington Nationals’ Class AAA affiliate, for example, shifting from Fresno, Calif. to Rochester, N.Y.

The resulting structure – which comes a little more than a year since MLB first revealed its plans to eliminate dozens of affiliated teams, sparking an outcry that eventually included threats from Congress - will reduce the number of affiliated minor league teams from 160 to 120, with dozens of others pegged for MLBbacked collegiate summer teams.

“The initial contraction proposal [from MLB] was 14 months ago. So it’s good to have some closure moving forward,” said Dave Ziedelis, general manager of the Frederick (Maryland) Keys, who, after 30 years as a Baltimore Orioles affiliate, were left off the list of 120 and will join the MLB Draft League starting in 2021. “Now we know what the structure will be. . . . There is some sense of relief.”